Olympic stars unite to promote global hunger summit

Faster, higher, stronger – and less hungry. As the London Olympics drew to a close on 12 August, UK prime minister David Cameron and the vice-president of Brazil, Michel Temer, hosted a global hunger summit at 10 Downing Street.

Sporting heroes Pelé, Haile Gebrselassie, and Mo Farah joined food scientists, members of the United Nations and aid organisations to highlight global malnutrition and discuss how it should be tackled.

Malnutrition is a particular problem for pregnant women and young children in poorer nations, since an inadequate diet can lead to stunted growth and premature death. By 2025, the World Health Organization hopes to reduce the number of children that become stunted by 40 per cent.

Push needed

“It’s going to take a lot of things to make that happen,” says Gordon Conway of Imperial College London, who participated in the summit. “We need to press hard on producing new biofortified foods,” he says.

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One promising programme discussed was the development of a fortified sweet potato shown to double vitamin A production in women and children. The UK’s Department for International Development committed to invest in the creation of nutrient-boosted crops, including support for HarvestPlus, the collaboration that developed the sweet potato.

But the problems are as much political as technical. Conway says a bigger push is needed to get people to grow crops and raise livestock on their own land. Part of that is finding which crops grow well, he says. But it’s also a matter of getting people to change their behaviour and supporting local private enterprises such as small seed sellers.